A collection of reviews of films from off the beaten path; a travel guide for those who love the cinematic world and want more than the mainstream releases.

Monday, June 27, 2016

In Brief:Independence Day Resurgence (2016)

Jeff Goldblum just realizes he's made another turkey

A large scale dunderheaded film that makes no real sense but has a few funny lines and a an action sequence or two that are fun in a pure spectacle sort of way.

The problem is that where Roland Emmerich used to make films for teenage boys he now let's them write the script with the result that characters are nonexistent and events trail off into nothingness. For example a huge fight inside a space ship is spectacular and then just is dropped and then picked up with no sense of how we got there. The number of aliens comes and goes, the number of hips come and go. The shields come and go. None of it makes sense on its own terms.

The film creates a frustration because you can't even go with it on its own terms. Its not just operating in its own universe, its creating as it goes on and destroying what went before. As an audience member you'll be doing head palms- and then staring at the screen in disbelief as the plot spontaneously creates itself in ways so unnatural that uptight conservative pundits will call for it to be prohibited by law.

This film is a film that cries out for the Rifftrax guys or lots of drunk friends- otherwise avoid it.